Monday, December 6, 2010

Trust and the Contradictions of Science

     I thank Paul Prescod for his comment to my last post and for providing me with links to discussions about scientists believing that their theories can also be facts, especially as they relate to evolution.  They are here and here.

     Having read these discussions I am even more disappointed in scientists. Yes folks, we can do better than this.  Talk about having your cake and eating it too. I know that during the years of the 80s and 90s the debates were brutal.  And semantic games had to be played.  And, intellectual slippage can occur.  And yet, I am also reminded of the old jokes about “if your data doesn’t support your theory then adjust the data” or “if the data suggests something else then adjust the theory to it.”
 
     I am particularly bothered by the statement “…the theory of evolution can also be called a fact, referring to this theory's well-established nature. Thus, evolution is widely considered both a theory and a fact by scientists” (from the second reference).

      So, basically skip all the above jokes and say that Theory is Fact.  This is a cop out and very disingenuous.

     Let’s ask ourselves:  is there any possibility that some day we wake to the screams of agony and ecstasy from biologists because they were wrong about evolution--because some other theory trumped it?

     Yes, it is very possible.  It can happen to you.  And smart people write books called Jurassic Park about it.

     Imagine yourself to be a Dismal Scientist waking up to the screams of Alan Greenspan having to admit that a part of his Monetarism theory was wrong.  That was big news and most economists understood he meant the whole theory was wrong.  (With the Maestro you always had to read between the lines).

     And now that the Monetarists have led us into the Greatest Economic Crisis of our life time the so called solution is Keynesianism, the other American economic theory that is thought to be “factual.”  Yes folks, economists believe their theories are Facts too.  Actually, they also thought their theories were too elegant to be bothered by facts (see this for one interpretation).  Honestly folks, I don’t want to watch this tragedy play out.

     Scientists who believe their theories are facts are fucking scary.  I don’t want anyone like that making policy decisions about the economy or environment.

     This whole discussion reminds me of Daniel Bell’s book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.  His argument was simply that capitalism “harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification—a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place.”

     Saying that Theory is Fact is a corrosion of the scientific work ethic.  Are we now seeing the internal contradictions of science?

     To conclude:  I don’t care what Anthropologist’s do to solve their current dilemma.  I do care if the broad diverse American public can trust scientists.  With our economy dying, and after the circus of global warming, I am not certain I can trust scientists.

     Anthropologists:  seek Trust not Truth in making your decision.


5 comments:

  1. You said:

    > So, basically skip all the above jokes and say that Theory is Fact. This is a cop out and very disingenuous.

    No. Not every theory is a fact. Theories that have been proven by overwhelming evidence are facts. This is exactly the way that the word fact is used in law and ordinary speech. It is a fact that I have a 5 year old daughter. Is it possible that I will wake up screaming one day and realize that a I lost a year in a Coma and she is actually six? Extremely unlikely but possible, I suppose. The chances are so small that I say it is a "fact" that she is 5 years old.

    Evolution is a fact like the moon revolves around the earth and the earth revolves around the sun.

    What definition of "fact" are *you* using? Do you agree that these three statements are facts?

    You said:

    > Let’s ask ourselves: is there any possibility that some day we wake to the screams of agony and ecstasy from biologists because they were wrong about evolution--because some other theory trumped it?

    Yes, just as there is a possibility that one day I will awake to learn that there is not and never has been a country called Pakistan. But the possibility is so vanishingly small as to be negligible. I don't preface every discussion of Pakistan with the phrase: "If it truly exists" because it would be ridiculous and impracticable. Occasionally you need to just draw a line in the sand and say that something is a fact.

    Maybe I live in the Truman show and Pakistan is some lie that's been fed to me. But you'll end up in a very bad psychological state if you deny facts that have been proven "beyond a reasonable doubt."

    You said:

    > Yes, it is very possible. It can happen to you. And smart people write books called Jurassic Park about it.

    I saw the movie: didn't read the book. Did they discover that there was no evolution in the book? I kind of assumed that Crichton was very comfortable with the theory of evolution.

    You said:

    > Imagine yourself to be a Dismal Scientist waking up to the screams of Alan Greenspan having to admit that a part of his Monetarism theory was wrong.

    Why would I do that? Economics has everything to do with the price of tea in China, but nothing to do with science.

    You said:

    > Yes folks, economists believe their theories are Facts too.

    Individual ones may, but no, as a group they do not believe that Economics is a reliable predictor of the economy. That's why THEY call it the "DISMAL" science. *They* -- economists -- call it the DISMAL science. So it is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

    It's extremely poor logic to draw a line from an extremely complex discipline in the humanities to the hardest of repeatable, observable hard science.

    You said:

    > Scientists who believe their theories are facts are fucking scary.

    A scientist who denies the fact that the moon revolves around the sun -- as a fact -- would be fucking scary. He'd be on par with the geographer theorist who denies that Asia exists. The same is true of evolution.

    Imagine you are a scientist. You examine the DNA of a population of bacteria. You submit it to an extreme stressor. Years later you examine the DNA again and observe that it has changed. Wouldn't you be a fucking idiot to ignore the evidence of your own eyes?

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  2. Paul, thanks for providing personal evidence supporting the main points of my two posts.

    The issues at stake here are not facts or theory as reality. The issues are trust, social acceptance, and street credibility. When scientism was widely popular in America scientists had all of these with plenty of credit to spare. Today, with scientism mostly gone from the general population, scientists are bleeding these values all over the place; they have no credit and are eroding the last bits of credibility they have.

    To make it personal: from what you wrote today I would never hire you to do any research for me. Nor would I recommend you to someone else. I could not trust your judgment. And I don’t care what your credentials are.

    For the record. I agree in the theory of evolution. I don't agree it is fact (don't do a data dump on me in an attempt to convince me; I'll delete it). If the community of scientists chose to proclaim evolution to be a fact I expect two things 1) stop calling it a theory and 2) make a strong effort to inform Americans that the status has changed so that we can stop being confused by your blurring of theory and fact.

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  3. L Moore,

    What personal evidence, exactly, are you referring to? What does "personal evidence" even mean?

    I'm puzzled by your response to Paul's carefully-worded refutation. There are entire sentences here, where I have no idea what you're even attempting to allude to.

    Seriously, what does Jurassic Park, a work of popular science fiction, have to do with any of this?

    And did you really just tell anthropologists that they should abandon their commitment to empiricism for the sake of some ephemeral advantage in the minds of the American public?

    Really just too confused to be outraged.

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  4. I share onathanatos' confusion.

    I feel like there is some goalpost shifting and that's the kind of thing that makes Internet conversations frustrating and counterproductive.

    You said that it is scary that scientists think that the theory of evolution is a fact. I tried to give a clear definition of fact and explain how a theory could also be a fact.

    Rather than accept or refute the claim that evolution is a fact, you turned it into a public relations issue. Now you want scientists to change their terminology. Whether or not that is valid, it's a totally different issue than the one you started with:

    "Scientists who believe their theories are facts are fucking scary."

    Fine, Darwin and Einstein were "fucking scary" -- in your opinion. I disagree.

    But more important, that has nothing to do with public relations. You didn't say that on behalf of "the public". You were (presumably) saying that on behalf of yourself. You L Moore considered Darwin and Einstein to be "fucking scary."

    You haven't justified that statement yet and it is the one I am interested in.

    You say that scientists should "make a strong effort to inform Americans that the status has changed."

    You don't get it. You just don't get it. The status did not change. A thing can be BOTH a theory AND a fact.

    "once a theory has been confirmed and reconfirmed over and over again, we get to the point that it will be treated as a "fact" for pretty much all contexts and purposes. Scientists may refer to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, but in most contexts Einstein's ideas here are treated as fact - treated as if they are simply true and accurate descriptions about the world."

    http://atheism.about.com/od/philosophyofscience/a/ScienceFacts.htm

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  5. My reply is a new post due to blogger messing with me.

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